I have a billion potential ideas running through my head. About five of those I have actually started and have become "side projects" in addition to my "day job". Some are further along than others, and a few are even demonstrable. The problem I have is that one always takes attention away from the others. I don't want to give up any of them, so the result is that none of them are finished.
Should I just pick the project with the most potential and finish it? Then how do I support it when I want to start something new? At what point should I form a "team" instead of going lone-wolf? Should I just quit and accept the fact that all my ideas can't succeed?
Is there a (free) tool that will help me prioritize my projects and ideas, give me an overview of the status of each, and help me form a resonable time-table?
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I use FogBugz. It's not free but it's a nice way to dump stuff out of my brain and then organize it later.
From Mark Biek -
I use FogBugz. It's not free but it's a nice way to dump stuff out of my brain and then organize it later.
Hosted FogBugz is free for up to 2 users under their student & startup package - just sign up for the trial, and change to the S&S package from the settings screen.
It's a good central place for project planning that also happens to be an excellent bug tracker.
From Greg Hurlman -
This is going to seem primitive, but I keep a TiddlyWiki on my USB drive that I typically have with me everywhere I go. It's a pretty good format for fleshing out ideas that aren't always complete thoughts yet. I have mine set up with a default page of my current ideas, I re-order them based on feasibility and interest as I update them.
Assaf Lavie : Consider using DropBox to host your Tiddly. you get revisions and automatic sync.Wally Lawless : Thanks, I've been doing it with DropBox for quite awhile now. It's awesome, plus I get the benefit of having access to it via the web if I happen to leave my USB drive at home.From Wally Lawless -
I use Todoist.
Although technically it's a to-do list, it also allows you to rate items in terms of priority, and allows you to add sub-projects to top-level projects, or even sub-items to main items. It also allows you to put date and time due, and you can set it to alert you via email.
From Jon Limjap -
Hosted FogBugz is free for up to 2 users under their student & startup package - just sign up for the trial, and change to the S&S package from the settings screen.
Interesting. Unfortunately I'm not a student anymore so I just bought the bullet and paid for it myself. At the time, I think I paid for $150 for a single-user license which has been more than worth it.
Eclipse : I think as an individual, you would fall into the "Startup" half of S&S.From Mark Biek -
Maybe I'm old school (or just plain primitive), but I always have a small spiral bound notebook with me. Whether I'm at work, or visiting the in-laws, if something hits me then I normally write it down. Later, I'll usually organize it in a text file on a USB drive.
From Tom -
I use OneNote and Live Mesh. My notebooks are saved to a Mesh folder and so I always have the latest version of my notes on all the machines I use. After setting it up, there's nothing I have to do to keep it up to date - no clicking save, since OneNote saves everything automatically, no need to tell things to sync, since Mesh does it automatically.
I also use the free versions of Backpack and Basecamp for some things.
From palmsey -
You don't need a tool. You need a strategy to get yourself organized.
From Patrick McElhaney -
Well, my answer is not related to software project ideas, but I think it can give you a hint on how to manage your ideas.
I'm a technical and fictional writer, and just like you I'm always having ideas for a good text. I have a folder on my computer named "ideas", and for each idea I create a .doc file inside it. On the file, at first I write just a rough phrase just to remember myself what I'll want to write. As you might guess, there are dozens of files inside this folder. Every now I then I open up this folder and scan the files to check if I'm in the mood to write something. Many of my texts were written in a span of weeks or even months.
Plus, I tag the files with words like empty, started, to-correct, etc, in order to keep them organized.
From Mario Marinato -br- -
I am slowly migrating from a set of folders and Circa notebooks into Evernote. I treat it as a Memex.
From deadprogrammer -
I do something similar to Mario except I use Google Docs, allowing me to do indexed searches, versioning, etc of all my ideas :)
From Tanerax -
@Tanerax, I have already though of changing to Google Docs, because this way I'll have my texts wherever I am. In fact, I already use it as a notepad when I'm not home, but a definitive change sounds nicer every day.
My only fear is losing it all if Google messes up its servers. (As if I was too disciplined to make home backups...)
From Mario Marinato -br- -
While I do use the free version of FogBugz (love it), for a list of ideas like you mentioned I actually keep it in my Yahoo! Notepad. I suppose I really should move it to Google docs though...
For side projects like you mention, support is always a problem. It's easy enough (to some degree) to write a product in the evenings, but providing daytime support is difficult. I think the trick is to outsource that support to other places. Read "The 4 Hour Workweek". It'll give you some ideas about outsourcing.
Even if you send it overseas, as long as its just email-based support, its probably good enough.
From Sam Schutte -
I usually just enter all my ideas into a Word document, I use excel as a TODO list.
You can also use Google Code to organize your project.
From Kevin -
Basecamp for organizing the "big picture" things, and Pivotal Tracker for tasks, issues, bugs, and releases. Pivotal tracker is the only issue tracking system I have ever really enjoyed using, and I've tried a lot of them!
From Jarin Udom -
My personal preference for to-do and ideas list: Remember the milk. Loves the gmail&twitter integration, and mobile interface.
From yoavf -
For mac users, the Omni Group software such as OmniOutliner are very popular (in fact, OmniOutliner comes with OS X by default if I remember correctly). I actually purchased the pro version of OmniOutliner for managing TODO lists for myself.
They make a pretty interesting piece of software called OmniPlan which is for project management. As a project management software, it of course includes graphical scheduling, timelines, task assignment, date/goal driven management of tasks, etc. You might find it worth a look. Here's a screenshot to give you an idea:
If you're looking for something more like a to-do list manager, they also have OmniFocus which is available for iPhone and/or OS X desktop and manages tasks with various integration throughout the system (Finder, mail, iCal, contacts).
From Jay -
I use Chandler from http://chandlerproject.org/.
It's pretty easy to use, you can access your database from multiple computers and even through the internet and it has a status field similar to what David Allen's Getting Things Done book suggests.
From lajos
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